Guidewire Survey: Insurance Customers Look to Cut Insurance Spending Due to Cost-of-living Concerns
28 June 2022 - 9:00PM
Business Wire
Almost four in ten people have never spoken to
their insurer, highlighting the engagement gap between insurers and
their customers
Guidewire (NYSE: GWRE) today announced the UK results of its
annual EMEA Insurance Consumer Survey, available in a whitepaper.
In the face of economic pressure insurance customers may cut back
on certain types of insurance coverage. The survey also found that
insurance customers are choosing flexible insurance policies due to
lifestyle factors instead of price.
With most people (86%) concerned about the cost-of-living
crisis, many are considering how to cut back. For almost half of
insurance customers (48%), that will be insurance cover that they
are not legally obliged to have. Policies likely to get the chop
are cover for travel (18%), home contents (17%), and bicycles
(16%).
This comes at a time when the opinions people have of insurers
have been tested by outside events. More than a third of people
think that insurers are necessary but inconvenient (36%), with a
quarter (25%) believing that they sell overpriced products and are
reluctant to pay out a claim. The second statement is particularly
stark when you consider that most (88%) have not had to make a
claim in the past twelve months. Insurers need to be careful that
the news headlines and hearsay during the COVID-19 pandemic do not
become entrenched views of the industry. More than a quarter (26%)
of people said that their opinion of insurers was negative and that
it has not changed in the past twelve months, a trend that could
threaten to undermine the good work that the industry does for its
customers.
Commenting on the findings, René Schoenauer, Director of EMEA
Product Marketing, said, “The combination of people’s finances
being squeezed and their opinions of insurers being low threatens
to widen the insurance gap in ways that could make consumers far
more open to harm. It appears that insurers are struggling to
demonstrate the value that they deliver to customers, and this is
being shown in notions of insurers as inconvenient or unwilling to
pay claims. Insurers need to consider how they can play a greater
role in their customers’ lives to show them the importance of the
products and services they provide and the benefit that customers
derive from them.”
One way that insurers could improve their relationship with
customers is to find more effective methods to engage with them.
Nearly four in ten people have never spoken to their insurer,
pointing to highly transactional and limited relationships. The
good news is that when customers and insurers do interact, almost
half (49%) believe that the customer service agents they speak to
have all the necessary information required to help them. There
does appear to be an opportunity for insurers to be more involved
in their customer’s day-to-day lives in the form of proactive risk
prevention services. Six out of ten (61%) people would welcome a
service that sent warnings about issues to prevent damage before it
happened.
One final thing that insurers ought to look out for is
competition from non-traditional competitors. More than four in ten
(45%) people would be comfortable purchasing an insurance policy
from the likes of Amazon, Tesla, or IKEA, with a further 30 percent
neither comfortable nor uncomfortable about the idea of doing
so.
“We have seen various major brands begin to offer embedded
insurance products and this trend is going to carry on,” continued
Schoenauer. “Since consumers appear comfortable with the idea of
buying from a consumer brand, even at this nascent stage, insurers
need to start planning now for what kind of role they will play in
this ecosystem economy. Do insurers fight to preserve their brand
and invest in becoming more customer-centric to do so? Or do they
choose to invest in technology that allows them to seamlessly
integrate with these consumer brands and expand their book of
business that way? There are no right or wrong answers here, but it
does require commitment to a clear strategy either way.”
Guidewire commissioned market research agency Censuswide to
survey a representative sample of 1,000 insurance customers aged 18
to 55+ years old. The survey took place in May 2022. The aim of the
survey is to provide the latest insights into how UK insurance
customers view insurers, their products, and services. Guidewire
commissioned simultaneous, parallel reports, in the UK, France,
Germany and Spain.
About Guidewire
Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage,
innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core,
analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More
than 450 insurers, from new ventures to the largest and most
complex in the world, run on Guidewire.
As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable
their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation
track record, with 1,000+ successful projects, supported by the
largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our
marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate
integration, localization, and innovation.
For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com and follow
us on twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.
NOTE: For information about Guidewire’s
trademarks, visit https://www.guidewire.com/legal-notices.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220628005198/en/
Daniel Couzens Allison + Partners +44(0)203 971 4308
guidewire@allisonpr.com
Louise Bradley PR & Communications – EMEA, Guidewire
+44(0)7474 837 860 lbradley@guidewire.com
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